Listen to Robert Emmerich introduce The Big Apple, a hit song from 1937. Music written by Bob and performed by Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven with Bob on piano. Lyrics written by Buddy Bernier and sung by Edythe Wright. Audio provided by Dorothy Emmerich.

"Dine and dash” is what occurs when someone eats at a restaurant and then leaves without paying. It’s not known of the term comes from New York City, but it’s cited from the 1987 New York Times. The term was used earlier on the sitcom Silver Spoons.

http://www.jumptheshark.com/s/silverspoons.htm
Anyway, I loved this show but it had one of the worst of all time fake punk episodes...the one where Ricky and Freddy take the two girls to Club Dead and then to an Italian restaurant, where they attempt the dine and dash. Lame, phony, ridiculous hair and outfits for all of them...this episode makes the after school special “The Day My Kid Went Punk” look like a documentary.

31 July 1987, New York Times, pg. B10:
Some customers walk away without paying. “I call it dine and dash,” said Allen Barcelon, assistant manager of the Riviera, which has a busy, blocklong cafe in Greenwich Village. At least every three days, he said, a customer walks away from the outdoor cafe without paying th check. Once a week a passer-by picks up money meant for the restaurant. Customers, too, must be beware. “I chased a purse snatcher on my second week here,” he said. “If it’s not on your lap, they’ll take it.”

Several times a month, Bolivar Arias, a dining-room manager at Havana Central in Times Square, nips a “dine and dash” in the bud.
Though one might think it’s something only a drunken frat boy might pull, there is no shortage, it seems, of New Yorkers who love feasting on lobster and steak, but don’t much like paying the bill afterward.

“It happens much more than people realize,” says Arias, and “usually, they’ve planned their move before they step foot into the restaurant.” Typically, the “dashers” will head to the bathroom around check time, he says, leaving only one diner at the table, poised to bolt. “One person went so far as to change shirts in the bathroom so we wouldn’t recognize him on his way out.”
(...)
Originally published on July 9, 2006